Letters to the Editor » Koch brothershttp://blog.thenewstribune.com/letters
Your views in 200 words or lessFri, 17 Jul 2015 01:55:35 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.0CLIMATE: Carbon tax is working in B.C.http://blog.thenewstribune.com/letters/2015/02/06/there-is-no-planet-b/
http://blog.thenewstribune.com/letters/2015/02/06/there-is-no-planet-b/#commentsFri, 06 Feb 2015 20:15:39 +0000http://blog.thenewstribune.com/letters/?p=93123I’m glad President Obama recognizes that there is no Planet B after we succeed in destroying this one. British Columbia enacted a carbon tax in 2008. Since then its GDP has increased, its unemployment is slightly below the Canadian national average and fuel consumption per head has dropped by 4.5 percent.

]]>I’m glad President Obama recognizes that there is no Planet B after we succeed in destroying this one. British Columbia enacted a carbon tax in 2008. Since then its GDP has increased, its unemployment is slightly below the Canadian national average and fuel consumption per head has dropped by 4.5 percent.

The Koch Industries leases 1.1 million acres in Canada’s oil sand regions of Alberta. A think tank study found that approval of the Keystone pipeline could generate $100 billion in profits for the billionaire Koch brothers, who have used their massive funds to push for its construction and sow doubt about climate change.

The Keystone article made no mention of the devastating oil spills we’ve already seen. A whistleblowing TransCanada Engineer reported that willful ignorance of engineering codes and regulations will make leaks more likely.

Obama is on the right track.

]]>http://blog.thenewstribune.com/letters/2015/02/06/there-is-no-planet-b/feed/0ELECTION: People should vote their consciencehttp://blog.thenewstribune.com/letters/2014/09/15/vote-your-conscience/
http://blog.thenewstribune.com/letters/2014/09/15/vote-your-conscience/#commentsMon, 15 Sep 2014 16:26:35 +0000http://blog.thenewstribune.com/letters/?p=87712In July I wrote a letter suggesting five reasons to vote Democratic. They referred to positive positions Democrats took regarding the minimum wage, extending unemployment benefits, believing in climate change and working to fix environmental problems caused by it, Obamacare (which is working terrifically despite negative or tepid press) and supporting the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

I indicated there were many more reasons, including Paycheck Fairness, the Violence Against Women Act, opposing Citizens United and establishing a fair way to get views more equally expressed, and working on the problem of income inequality.

]]>In July I wrote a letter suggesting five reasons to vote Democratic. They referred to positive positions Democrats took regarding the minimum wage, extending unemployment benefits, believing in climate change and working to fix environmental problems caused by it, Obamacare (which is working terrifically despite negative or tepid press) and supporting the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

I indicated there were many more reasons, including Paycheck Fairness, the Violence Against Women Act, opposing Citizens United and establishing a fair way to get views more equally expressed, and working on the problem of income inequality.

The purpose of this letter, though, is that I want people to be aware that because of the Citizens United Supreme Court decision, big money has polluted politics to the degree that rich people simply have a still louder and more unequal voice.

Republicans will tell you that this pits their rich guys against Democratic rich guys, which, to some degree, is true. However, the Koch brothers are committed to contributing at least $500 million to elect people who will sell out to (I mean support) them, and Karl Rove has another $150 million in the game.

I want everyone to vote their conscience. It is important to understand the issues as a civic duty, and it is important to decide based on which issues are most important to you. It almost seems as if, at least in my case, that it will be a good result if people vote for the candidate who has the fewest TV or radio advertisements.

I personally thought Costco using our state initiative process to change the liquor business was reprehensible, but the funding for I-594 is nothing short of perversion.

It’s my understanding the initiative process was put in place to give the citizens of Washington state an avenue to make or amend laws, not for corporations to increase profit or for wealthy political ideologues to …

]]>The funding lining up to support Initiative 594 reads like an A-list of the Democratic elite: former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, $1 million; Bill and Melinda Gates, $1 million; Nick Hanauer, $1 million; Steve and Connie Ballmer, $600,000; Paul Allen, $500,000.

I personally thought Costco using our state initiative process to change the liquor business was reprehensible, but the funding for I-594 is nothing short of perversion.

It’s my understanding the initiative process was put in place to give the citizens of Washington state an avenue to make or amend laws, not for corporations to increase profit or for wealthy political ideologues to impose change from behind the security of armed response teams and the safety of gated communities.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has been quoted recently railing against the Koch brothers’ financial influence in U.S. politics. Where’s the anger and rhetoric when Democrats are guilty of the same behavior?

Reid said billionaire donors are mounting a “hostile takeover” of America. As much as I hate to admit it, the senator may be right.

According to writer Rekha Basu, the Koch brothers are the denizens of the political world, using their wealth to exploit the system for selfish gain. I wonder if the $1.4 million donated to Democratic candidates, leadership PACs and party committees (according to Politico) since 2000 falls into that realm as well.

Perhaps if the brothers upped the amount to the Democrats, there would be less hue and cry from Basu, Sen. Harry Reid, et al.

In February 2014, the Center for Responsive Politics listed the 10 biggest political …

According to writer Rekha Basu, the Koch brothers are the denizens of the political world, using their wealth to exploit the system for selfish gain. I wonder if the $1.4 million donated to Democratic candidates, leadership PACs and party committees (according to Politico) since 2000 falls into that realm as well.

Perhaps if the brothers upped the amount to the Democrats, there would be less hue and cry from Basu, Sen. Harry Reid, et al.

In February 2014, the Center for Responsive Politics listed the 10 biggest political donors from 1989-2012; none are Republican. Was this not deserving of the columnist’s ink, or maybe a sin of omission?

It’s a fact there are more Democrat millionaires in Congress than Republicans, and the Democrats harvest more donations from the wealthy donors and unions than their opponents. Also, how can one place a value on the free political patronage given by the liberal commentators in the alphabet networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, NPR, MSNBC, etc.).

However, the irony reaches its pinnacle when the president shows up in the Seattle area this week to have a $35,000-a-plate dinner with the “little people.” I bet beans and hot dogs won’t be on that menu. Lastly, the so called political donation problem could be solved with term limits. Until that comes about, you have an opportunity in the upcoming elections to vote some fresh air into the system.

Your editorial suggests you want to ensure that political contributions are of the highest order.

Why has a story from 2012 resurfaced? Because the Freedom Foundation worries about donations from JZ Knight to local Democrats in 2014. In 2013, Knight supported Democrat Mary Hall. Hall defeated a Republican candidate backed by the Freedom Foundation to become the first Democratic auditor in Thurston County in 71 years.

Your editorial failed to mention that the Ramtha’s School of Enlightenment videos were edited. Two people who illegally disseminated the videos admitted to editing …

Your editorial suggests you want to ensure that political contributions are of the highest order.

Why has a story from 2012 resurfaced? Because the Freedom Foundation worries about donations from JZ Knight to local Democrats in 2014. In 2013, Knight supported Democrat Mary Hall. Hall defeated a Republican candidate backed by the Freedom Foundation to become the first Democratic auditor in Thurston County in 71 years.

Your editorial failed to mention that the Ramtha’s School of Enlightenment videos were edited. Two people who illegally disseminated the videos admitted to editing them in separate court cases. The excerpted clips fail to take into account the context of the event. The original audience understood the context.

The Freedom Foundation is a right-wing political operation with ties to the Koch brothers, ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) and Donors Trust. The Seattle newspaper The Stranger stated that “the Freedom Foundation is partially funded through Donors Trust, a Koch-funded shadow trust that Mother Jones recently described as ‘the dark-money ATM of the conservative movement.’ The Freedom Foundation is also an active participant in ALEC.”

As your editorial so eloquently stated of Knight’s donations to Thurston County Democrats, “that $65,000 looks plenty green.” Then what is the color of the tens or hundreds of thousands from out-of-state, right-wing groups to Thurston County Republicans?

The article on efforts to roll back state incentives for policies that favor green energy points out that the big utilities and such “conservative” actors as the Koch brothers and Grover Norquist are behind the misleading and counterproductive campaign. They assert that net-metering solar power producers do not pay to maintain the power grid, which is clearly false.

As one homeowner with solar panels tied to the grid, I can tell you that I do pay a customer charge for that connection, beyond what I pay for electricity I …

The article on efforts to roll back state incentives for policies that favor green energy points out that the big utilities and such “conservative” actors as the Koch brothers and Grover Norquist are behind the misleading and counterproductive campaign. They assert that net-metering solar power producers do not pay to maintain the power grid, which is clearly false.

As one homeowner with solar panels tied to the grid, I can tell you that I do pay a customer charge for that connection, beyond what I pay for electricity I use.

The real issue here is that the utility business model needs to change to accommodate renewables and the true cost of carbon emissions, and that may mean some cost to the utilities and their shareholders – no doubt including the Koch brothers and their followers.

We must demand that the utilities cut their carbon emissions and develop a “smart grid” to protect against failure of the service. The state of Washington must continue the policy of promoting renewables and providing incentives for individuals and companies to generate power which they use, and feed back into the grid for everyone to use.

The Legislature and the governor should tell these big business interests to deal with the real problems, not to attack those who are trying to be part of the solution to our energy problems.

]]>http://blog.thenewstribune.com/letters/2014/04/22/dont-roll-back-solar-incentives/feed/0POLITICS: Koch brothers behind tea party shutdownhttp://blog.thenewstribune.com/letters/2013/10/11/tea-party-congress-high-on-koch/
http://blog.thenewstribune.com/letters/2013/10/11/tea-party-congress-high-on-koch/#commentsFri, 11 Oct 2013 18:28:37 +0000http://blog.thenewstribune.com/letters/?p=73133It’s well documented that the Koch brothers funded the national tea party rallies. They’re now behind the tea party’s government shutdown.

The Kochs have long promoted their own brand of libertarianism, which purports to be about freedom from government interference. But their plan is to wreck our government so they can take it over.

The strategy of the billionaire’s club is to divide and conquer. High-paid operatives have perfected the old game of feeding grass-roots bias to splinter the opposition and pit citizen against citizen. Neighbor blames neighbor instead of recognizing the real enemies of democracy.

]]>It’s well documented that the Koch brothers funded the national tea party rallies. They’re now behind the tea party’s government shutdown.

The Kochs have long promoted their own brand of libertarianism, which purports to be about freedom from government interference. But their plan is to wreck our government so they can take it over.

The strategy of the billionaire’s club is to divide and conquer. High-paid operatives have perfected the old game of feeding grass-roots bias to splinter the opposition and pit citizen against citizen. Neighbor blames neighbor instead of recognizing the real enemies of democracy.

Professional propagandists have honed the art of altering perception on the battlegrounds of consumer advertising. Now they’re taking mob psychology to new levels. In addition, the Koch brothers feature crony Supreme Court justices at their fund-raisers. They fund organizations that masquerade as grass-roots citizens groups. They fund foundations with misleading names and phony “think tanks” that churn out misleading reports.

The Kochs are among the billionaires who fund the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which prepackages corporate special interest legislation and then finds state legislators willing to pass it off as their own. They don’t want voters to know who is really behind bills that benefit corporations at the expense of consumers, families and taxpayers.

The Kochs and their billionaire friends intend to buy enough cronies in Congress and on the U.S. Supreme Court to undo our democracy and replace it with their own brand of feudalism.

]]>http://blog.thenewstribune.com/letters/2013/10/11/tea-party-congress-high-on-koch/feed/0ELECTION: Angel’s claims contradicted by performancehttp://blog.thenewstribune.com/letters/2013/09/12/angels-claims-contradicted-by-performance/
http://blog.thenewstribune.com/letters/2013/09/12/angels-claims-contradicted-by-performance/#commentsThu, 12 Sep 2013 21:40:30 +0000http://blog.thenewstribune.com/letters/?p=71276Voters may find 26th District state Rep. Jan Angel charming, but they should pay more attention to her performance as a legislator. She claims to be an advocate for families, education and women, but her voting record tells a different story. She has a history of putting the interests of her corporate handlers ahead of her constituents.

She claims she does not pass prepackaged ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) bills off as her own, but that is exactly how she got to be ALEC co-chair for the state of Washington.

]]>Voters may find 26th District state Rep. Jan Angel charming, but they should pay more attention to her performance as a legislator. She claims to be an advocate for families, education and women, but her voting record tells a different story. She has a history of putting the interests of her corporate handlers ahead of her constituents.

She claims she does not pass prepackaged ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) bills off as her own, but that is exactly how she got to be ALEC co-chair for the state of Washington.

ALEC owes its success at placing corporate special interest bills in legislatures across the country to operatives willing to sell their legislative services in exchange for contributions from ALEC’s member corporations. ALEC also wines and dines its operatives during expense-paid weekends at posh resorts, where they secretively meet with corporate lobbyists.

The Koch brothers (major funders of ALEC) have boasted that ALEC places a thousand prepackaged special interest bills each year in state legislatures across the country, and that 20 percent are enacted into law.

ALEC bills include those designed to suppress voting by minority groups, a bill to prohibit animal rights advocates from documenting animal abuse in the livestock-raising and meat-packing industries and (one of Angel’s favorites) a bill that would require drug testing of welfare recipients.

ALEC bills typically serve corporate interests at the expense of consumers and taxpayers. We don’t need an ALEC operative in our state Senate.

]]>http://blog.thenewstribune.com/letters/2013/09/12/angels-claims-contradicted-by-performance/feed/0ELECTION: What will be the quid pro quo?http://blog.thenewstribune.com/letters/2012/08/27/2012-election/
http://blog.thenewstribune.com/letters/2012/08/27/2012-election/#commentsMon, 27 Aug 2012 23:57:47 +0000http://blog.thenewstribune.com/letters/?p=51347The 2012 presidential election is in a terrible state now, what with expectations that over a billion dollars will be spent, much of it secret donations resulting from the Citizen’s United debacle.

A couple hundred people are writing seven- to nine-figure checks to propagandize, scare, lie and smear certain candidates. If you can bear to watch TV between now and November, be my guest.

Suppressing the vote and quid pro quo between operatives trying to buy outcomes are rampant. For example, Sheldon Adelson and the Koch brothers are shoveling in money, yet directly benefit from what Romney says he wants. …

]]>The 2012 presidential election is in a terrible state now, what with expectations that over a billion dollars will be spent, much of it secret donations resulting from the Citizen’s United debacle.

A couple hundred people are writing seven- to nine-figure checks to propagandize, scare, lie and smear certain candidates. If you can bear to watch TV between now and November, be my guest.

Suppressing the vote and quid pro quo between operatives trying to buy outcomes are rampant. For example, Sheldon Adelson and the Koch brothers are shoveling in money, yet directly benefit from what Romney says he wants. It’s a huge conflict of interest, and has gone completely out of control.

Vote Republican if you like, but you’re being bulldozed into a nightmare scenario of corporatist, self-righteous, hypocritical fussbudgets. Unless you’re in the 1 percent like Romney and his cohort, I guarantee they won’t have your interests in mind. This is neither patriotic nor a reasonable answer for our beloved country.

More than ever, it’s now clear that a vote for Romney is a vote for the puppet masters behind his campaign. Nothing in Romney’s background suggests a predilection towards the tea party, yet his selection of Ryan is the quintessential tea party choice.

So who’s calling the shots in his campaign? Judging from the money raised by the various PACs supporting him, it’s none other than America’s Republican elite, led by …

More than ever, it’s now clear that a vote for Romney is a vote for the puppet masters behind his campaign. Nothing in Romney’s background suggests a predilection towards the tea party, yet his selection of Ryan is the quintessential tea party choice.

So who’s calling the shots in his campaign? Judging from the money raised by the various PACs supporting him, it’s none other than America’s Republican elite, led by the Koch brothers, Harold Clark Simmons and Sheldon Adelson.

Be careful, America. This is an important election. Set yourselves up to become the pawns of the rich, or create a world that works for all of us. Your choice.